‘Hyper-inflation’, ‘genocide’ and ‘rock-bottom’
I clearly remember having a lengthly and rather heated debate with a friend about when inflation could be correctly called ‘hyper-inflation’. The same argument arose with another friend with the use of the word ‘genocide’ in relation to what is happening in Zimbabwe. “We cannot cry wolf,” she said. “It’s too early to label our country with the word ‘genocide’”.
Another great debate we all have here, and probably the most common one, is “When will we hit the bottom and how will we know when we are actually there?”
It seems to me that the first two are no longer just a topic for discussion, but a reality. As for the third, I’m still waiting for the bottom of this seemingly bottomless pit of misery.
Obviously we are in a hyper-inflationary situation and given that we have the highest rate of inflation in the world, who can dispute that?
Genocide may not be so obvious to people outside Zim, but what other word would accurately describe a nation of people dying of starvation in a country where there IS FOOD AVAIBLABLE to purchase but no money to do so? Where a government occassionally prevents AID organisations from feeding the starving? This is a MAN MADE CRISIS. The severe shortage of our own currency is costing lives.
Is this the deliberate control and manipulation of a nation of people, or is it just the downside of corruption and greed in the hands of a few monsters?
The machine can be stopped. The brakes can be applied, but they just don’t want to. Maybe the train has run away?
The general consensus is that there is an element of control somewhere, but it only serves a select few. So, no runaway train.
The honorable thing to do would be to admit defeat, but most believe that won’t happen either because then there is the danger of accountability. The FEAR of accountability – the fear of being forced to confront their atrocities.
Can the suffering that the cash crises has brought about be a contributing factor to silent genocide?
Very basically, the RTGS (telegraphic transfer) rate is determined by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as follows: ‘X’ amount of foreign currency is needed today. Purchase forex at a rate of ‘X’ today to reach that target. Cash (foreign currency) is then purchased by the banks and payment is done in Zimbabwe dollars by credit to an account. No Zim dollars change hands
Late last week the RBZ announced that all telegraphic (RTGS) transfers and all internal bank transfers were no longer allowed. The rate was once again escalating at an extraordinary speed (even for Zim!).
Loopholes in the system soon became giant craters. Within a period of 10 days the RTGS rate shot up from $70,000 (to USD1) to $1,000,000 (to USD1). In turn, inflation, the cost of living, goes with it.
Wages do not.
The standard of living drops even further into the abyss. People who were living on the edge have now been brutally shoved over, and those who were already in trouble…well, I just don’t know.
And so, in their usual short-sighted, panic-stricken manner, the RBZ stopped the transactions with immediate effect (of course THEY are all very wealthy now, so who cares!). RTGS transactions that were already submitted were rejected by RBZ and in those early hours, further chaos reigned.
So now what? The fact that there is no RTGS system does not mean that the economy is suddenly miraculously healed, that inflation is plugged, and we will all live happily ever after.
No, no, no.
All this means is that it’s time to cook up a new plan, call it by another name, and continue along the path of the rainbow (for the select few our course who must surely have that pot of gold in sight by now!).
The initial impact is again, severe. As I write this, the rate, now prematurely being branded as the “cheque rate’, is being quoted at four times the last RTGS rate resulting in a rate of $4,000,000 (to USD1).
Oh, how I was shocked a mere 10 days ago at the rate of $70,000. When will I learn?
So all of this chaos leads back to the third topic of debate, ‘when will we hit the bottom and how will we know when we are actually there?’
If you have the answer, then please enlighten me.
October 9th, 2008 20:39
No, it isn’t genocide. Genocide is when people of one race or racial grouping deliberately kill all (or as many as possible) of another group, _because_of_their_race. If the Mugabe thugs deliberately set out to kill every white person in Zimbabwe, that would be genocide.
Simply killing millions of people for no particular racial reason is a massacre, not a genocide. To confuse the two devalues what happened to the European Jews, or the Armenians. Hitler was more evil than Mugabe.
There is a need for another word, perhaps “claasicide” to describe what Marxist dictators such as Stalin did to the bourgeois or the lanlords. There is, I think, an element of this in the events in Zimbabwe. But mostly it is rule by the greedy, power-mad and incompetent, of which there are many examples throughout history.
October 9th, 2008 20:40
That should be “classicide”.
October 9th, 2008 21:42
@Don Cox -
How about ‘politicide’? Political mass killings, as defined by Genocide Watch
Hope
October 10th, 2008 11:28
Emeritus professor Richard Rummel has a website dedicated to the ‘Democratic Peace.’ Once a finalist for the Nobel Peace Prize, he is most famous for his term, “democide,” the official killing by government of its citizens.
Mr. Mugabe’s and the ZANU-PF’s rule in Zimbabwe is a democide.
October 10th, 2008 16:05
According to the Ethiopian definitio, it is Genocide.
Mengistu, “Mugabe’s house Guest”, remember was sentenced to death by Ethiopia for Genocide because he caused or advocated, ordered and incited the death of his citizens ion the basis of their “political affiliation.”
So, according to one accepted African Definition, the Zimbabwean Situatio IS a genocide for the deliberate causing of death ( by denying food) of a group of people on the basis of their poltical affiliation.
October 10th, 2008 19:03
This quip appeared in the JAG (Justice for Agriculture) newsletter, and I just had to smile!
So with apologies, Joe Whaley – I reproduce it here:-
Dear JAG,
If Churchill had been alive today, in reference to the Dark Continent, he would have said something along the lines of “Never before in the history of mankind has so little been achieved by so many with so much”!!
Cheers
Joe Whaley
October 11th, 2008 18:32
Point of clarification:
Genocide is based more on Ethnicity than Race. Hutu and Tutsi are the same Race.
Genocide is a very hard term to find concensous on, however I think we can all agree that the situation in Zim is a set-up to something horrific.
October 13th, 2008 07:28
I think that trying to define the policies with which Mugabe and his cronies have destroyed the country is fairly irrelevant-genocide, democide, politicide, classicide-whatever you want to call it-the real problems is what to do. Clearly the man and his cronies who run the country need to be deposed from power, his nearly 30-year rule brought to an end, and led Tsvangrai and the opposition be given the chance to run the country. There was international pressure earlier this summer which caused Mugabe to agree to the power-sharing agreement in the first place-let us hope, and work for that to be brought back, and that Mugabe is eventually taken down from power. Zimbabweans, I have no connection to you, but I weep for you and the terrible things that have been do to you and your country. I hope and pray that someday, life in Zimbabwe will match what can be found in the advanced nations of the world.
October 13th, 2008 12:37
It would seem that rock bottom will only be reached when Mugabe and his cronies are in the same situation as their people – no food and no money. The only thing left to hope for is that before they reach that point they have no jobs, either.
October 15th, 2008 16:56
All of this is blather!
Zimbabweans are renowned for “making a plan”.
The only plan I’m seeing is wringing of hands.
If we don’t do something we’re all finished.
We need to DO SOMETHING!